Google Starts Giving A Ranking Boost To Secure HTTPS/SSL Sites

Google To Give Secure Sites A Ranking Boost

Google has announced that going HTTPS — adding a SSL 2048-bit key certificate on your site — will give you a minor ranking boost.

Google says this gives websites a small ranking benefit, only counting as a “very lightweight signal” within the overall ranking algorithm. In fact, Google said this carries “less weight than other signals such as high-quality content.” Based on their tests, Google says it has an impact on “fewer than 1% of global queries” but said they “may decide to strengthen” the signal because they want to “encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web.”

Google also said based on their tests for the past few months, the HTTPS signal showed “positive results” in terms of relevancy and ranking in Google’s search results.

SEO Concerns With Going HTTPS

Should you be concerned when switching from your HTTP to HTTPS site for SEO purposes? Not so much. Google has been telling webmasters it is safe to do so for years. But you need to take the proper steps to ensure your traffic doesn’t suffer. That means make sure to communicate to Google that you moved your site from HTTP to HTTPS. Google promises to release more documentation in the future, but for now has provided the following tips:

Decide the kind of certificate you need: single, multi-domain, or wildcard certificate

Use 2048-bit key certificates

Use relative URLs for resources that reside on the same secure domain

Use protocol relative URLs for all other domains

Check out our site move article for more guidelines on how to change your website’s address

Attend Our Conferences

MarTech: The Marketing Tech Conference is for marketers responsible for selecting marketing technologies and developing marketing technologists. MarTech returns to San Jose April 3-5. Learn more about MarTech West.